This blog site is a place for Anna Jaworski, author of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome: A Handbook for Parents and My Brother Needs an Operation, and editor of The Heart of a Mother and The Heart of a Father, to keep readers updated on important news related to Baby Hearts Press and important information for the heart community. For more information about Baby Hearts Press, please visit us at http://www.babyheartspress.com.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Blog from A Heart Dad

Dear Heart Friends:It is with great pleasure that I introduce another guest blogger -- Will Patterson. I hope you enjoy getting to know this terrific heart dad as much as I have! Here's his blog! Anna

Everyone
who has a heart child knows it changes you. Blogging was something I had
planned on doing for some time. I had been talking to my wife about doing it
two years before our youngest son was diagnosed with severe congenital heart
defects (CHDs).I had planned on
blogging about parenting, living on a budget and anything else that came to
mind.

When
we went for our routine ultrasound at 18 weeks those plans changed.It was a day I’ll never forget.We brought our other two kids to see
the baby thinking it would be a quick visit and we would find out if it was a
boy or girl. The day went very differently then we planned. The ultrasound tech
was measuring different parts of the baby.When she got to the heart she took unusually long. She
excused herself saying she needed to enter some measurements into the
computer.She came back and said
the doctor needed to come and take additional pictures.

When
the doctor finished taking his pictures he said the words that crushed us, “We
can only see one ventricle, the heart is supposed to have two. You need to go
to CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) where they can do more
tests.”It would be five days
before CHOP could see us. We were crushed.

Could
our baby live? What’s a single ventricle? We were on the Internet constantly
the next few days.We were
panicked parents looking for any information to help.I found page after page with Adult CHDers and parents telling
their story.It gave us the hope
we needed.

When
we got to CHOP and had our echo done we were put in the consultation room.It was there I was given our son’s
diagnosis hypoplastic right ventricle, large ventricular septal defect (VSD),
pulmonary atresia, right ventricle aorta and straddling tricuspid valve. It was
really hard to process in those few minutes. After the doctor finished listing
the problems with his heart he changed his tone and told us how they going to
help us.He explained the series
of surgeries our son would need.

It
was shortly after we left CHOP that I knew what I had to do. My unborn son
needed me to advocate for him and all the children like him.I needed to add my voice to the CHD
community to help others who needed hope and positive stories through some of
the hardest parts of their lives. I stopped procrastinating and started my
blog, www.theheartdad.com.I can also be found at www.facebook.com/theheartdad and
@theheartdad.

My
goal is to raise awareness for CHD, help raise funds, support families and
those impacted by CHD’s.I’m
blogging about CHDs, my son and other general topics like parenting, living on
a budget and reviews of different products. By covering different topics I’m
hoping to reach a larger audience and introduce them to CHD along the way.We have an incredible community.I’m committed to doing whatever I can
to help pull us together to make CHD a household term.

Will
Patterson a.k.a The Heart Dad

Please check out Will's blog and feel free to leave him a comment here!